By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — A plan to chart the future of Longshore Club Park, often called one of the town’s crown jewels, encountered difficulty at the Parks and Recreation Commission’s meeting Thursday night.

The commission was discussing a Capital Improvement Plan for the shorefront park. It could shape the park for decades to come.

No decisions were made Thursday and no votes were taken, but it was clear that participants — officials and those who use the park regularly — had strong opinions.

The capital plan includes options of relocating the golf clubhouse, perhaps with a better view of the water, moving the golf maintenance shed, and also creating more pickleball courts and various traffic changes.

Tim Romano said he’s played the course more than 3,000 times.

“And we’re going to put a clubhouse in a parking lot?” he asked. “I can’t visualize my friends and I going up for a bucket of popcorn and a hot dog afterward and saying, ‘The asphalt looks great. What a beautiful sunset, I can feel the heat from the asphalt.’”

He said he didn’t get it.

“We the people,” he said, gesturing to others in the Town Hall auditorium, “we own the park.”

Marie Gross, president of the Longshore Women’s Golf Association, said she was speaking on behalf of about 120 golfers.

She asked if anyone knew how much revenue golfers, as opposed to racketball enthusiasts, brought to the town.

Pickleball is an increasingly popular sport, and tensions run high when its enthusiasts encroach on the golfing crowd.

“The golfers have been waiting 63 years for a clubhouse,” Gross said. “Sixty-three years. And it’s going to take another 10 years, many of us won’t be here.”

Brent Biedermann thanked the commission for all of its work. “I think you’re on the right track,” he said.

The planning process has spanned more than a year, and been discussed at numerous commission meetings. Officials invited the public’s views in online surveys and in-person workshops. Click here for the website maintained by Stantec, the project’s consultant, for a compilation of survey results, diagrams of various options and planning documents.

But, Biedermann said, he agreed with Romano.

“The whole elephant in the room is all about the clubhouse,” he said. “If you guys don’t get the clubhouse right, you’re not going to win the fight.”

Detailed options for Longshore golfing facilities were presented at a commission meeting in December.

Four members of the Representative Town Meeting — Chris Tait, District 1; Jimmy Izzo, District 3; Sal Liccione, District 9, and Andrew Colabella, District 4 — also expressed concerns about the plans.

The RTM has final say on all town funding matters.

“I’m very disappointed tonight on some of the things I’ve heard tonight from the administration, where it seems like, the feeling I’m getting is the push of No. 1,” Izzo said of the options in the capital plan.

“When I start hearing this about safety, and all this other stuff …,” he said. “Safety is pedestrians coming through a golf course. Parks and Rec allowing road races, the runners to come through there.”

“I’ve got to tell you that I’m really upset, what I’ve heard from the administration.” Izzo said. “I want you to listen to the public, I want you to understand that we’re willing to work with No. 2, at least I am.”

Tait, the RTM’s Parks and Recreation Committee chairman, thanked the commission for its work.

“Longshore is great, it works well. We need to upgrade it,” Tait said. “We don’t need to fix something that’s not broke.”

And, he said, the town’s looking at building two new schools, and warned this could likely “get kicked down the road.”

Colabella acknowledged people want more pickleball courts, but added, “I’m still against tearing down a cabin.”

Longshore has several historic cabins, a century old, that now provide affordable housing to town employees.

“Forty years ago you could work for the town of Westport and live in the town of Westport,” he said. “Not anymore.”

Liccione agreed with Colabella.

“We do need to keep cabin 1,” he said, referring to possible plans to tear it down to make way for pickleball courts.

“And when I heard this a couple months ago I was very disappointed,” he said. “We need more affordable housing, also we need a clubhouse.”

Thane Grauel, executive editor, grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond more than three decades. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.